New Call for an Old Dog

[tjwatty]

I guess we will see if you can teach an old dog new tricks.
I broke down and bought a short reed goose call last week and am now trying to re-learn how to call. After 20 years of using a flute this is an experience.
I've wanted a Foiles call the last couple years and was helping give a seminar on duck calling last year when I first tried one out. After about 3 hrs of work I got where I could make it honk but that was about it. The $150 price tag was holding me back the most but last week I was with a friend, who teaches goose calling, and we found a call made by River Bottom Calls that is really pretty. He tried it and it sounds great so I bought the darn thing, substancially cheaper than Mr. Foiles but still too dang high. It's Ivory colored with flying geese lazer ingraved on it, I wish I was capable of showing a pic. but I can't so use you imagination.
Anyway, after a week of driving the neighborhood, dog, and wife crazy, I was sent to the local lake to practice and I'm almost to the point where I will be happy with what I can do. Some of the growls and clucks still need work but most all other I can do, to my satisfaction at least.
My teacher will be back from the Dakotas next week so I'll get my grades then. He better grade on a curve, I'm the one who taught him to call ducks.

[kt]

i made the mistake of taking a women with me last time i got near calls and quickly got the stereotypical "you have enough of those already" ( repeated again as i approached the knives counter.) i got a short reed about 3 years back after playing the flute for my first 6 years of the sport. maybe it is just my short reed, but both calls go afield. the short reed makes a deafening honk that has turned specks of black on the horizon into locked up geese at 20 yds, its faster i can double and triple honk no problem and with two other callers it sounds magnificent. on the other hand i have little in the way of a low end and my flute makes those feeding sounds and low volume sounds much more efficiently. so they both hunt. actually the way i learned the short reed was that once i figured out how quick the air had to travel to make a honk, i figured how to make a fast clucking routine than slowed it down into those long distance brrrrrrr-honk! sounds. a buddy used it one day taught him the same way, now he bought the same call, i tuned it and its better than mine, i think i will steal the guts from it. listen to the lessons of the teacher with the white chin straps, they never grade on a curve. enjoy the new call
kt